Having come of age in the '70's, and being a bluegrass/country fan, that's my decade. My ears eventually pointed out to me how great Brent's organ sounds and his harmonizing are. Between poking around the archive and reading the posts by '80's heads, I am currently diving into 1980 and 1989 simultaneously. I reached this show by checking out New Year's 1989-1990 (check out the unique "Victim or the Crime") and seeing all the "prior night was better" comments. Yes, this is a great show! Thank you to the '80's heads for your sign posts! I am off to 7/19, 10/9, 2/11 next.

This is already a solid 4+ star show until the Other One puts it over the top to 5 stars, say 5-. There are some weird moments in the first set. Good Lovin' is cut short, but that results in a nifty segue into a screaming Sugaree. Bob sings, "We forgot about the time," in TMNS, and then the band "forgets" about the rest of the verses and last chorus! I wonder if that was some sort of wry joke on their part. Anyway, a middle jam enhanced by midi-flute ensues, though the closing jam isn't quite up to the highest standard.
Certainly no one but the most jaded head could complain about the second set. Estimated>Terrapin -- what a powerful sequence, but it almost pales next to the Other One. Handicapped by having to bring the energy back up from the lullaby, it does so and more. The long (by 80's standards) between-verses jam gets spacey and spooky for a while, then explodes.The interplay between instruments make this a must hear. Standing on the Moon also gets more than the usual intensity for its time.

Does anyone have the New Grass Revival set from New Year's Eve, the night after this show?

Being a self-professed 89-90 fanatic, I'll give all of the strong shows from these years 5 stars as I enjoy them more than the best performances from other era. The sound quality was so good, the midi effects pushed limits never before tested and the band really was firing on all cylinders. Some of the newly introduced tracks from Built to Last were good.

A vile of liquid emptied into my pocket..then through my skin! A very interesting night to say the least..Nice sound and well played show..It's nice to hear it now and try to piece together a night that oozed into morning..I enjoyed this New Years run and this night..so please..GIVE IT A WHIRL!! Forever Grateful>Forever Dead!!!!!!!!!!

Have to chime in on this one, as it is my personal favorite 2nd set I ever attended. It has haunted me for years. Suprised nobody has mentioned the depth of this Terrapin. Definately a peak for my tour days......

The last memorable show IMHO.

I Can't really name a more high energy Bertha, lovely drum runs and just peaked out at all the right moments.
Goodlovin smokes to start and has some shared verses between Brent n weir that I just love. Jerry pulls n abrupt end to the song and goes into sugaree. Not the typical arrangement and garcias guitar is got a really high tone, playin really slow on the first solo then hits the really fast notes of the usual 2 or 3rd solo. Mickey starts to play hard and the band follows for a racaus big moment near the end.
Wakin- solid yet standard reading
j a roe- tight
masterpiece-love that song one of the stronger Dylan possibilities
west la- yes, yes, more....yes highlight of the first set next to Bertha
music-
set two getting there

didnt think this show stood out but upon reflection and its play on sirus this year is evidence maybe of its quality, bob is lost during good love, but this is a strong show in what i beleive is the last of the last of the good shows , i curtailed my shows post brent for whatever reason he was coming into his own at this time only to leave us shortly anyways sold show in a sold year

Very odd that nobody mentions Brent taking some of Weir's lyrics on Good lovin'. Also odd that nobody mentions the hasty exit to Good Lovin. It sounds like a complete mess, almost like Weir was more scattered than usual.

I usually just write a review to review the show and really don't want to snip at the different reviews but this set of reviews really caught my attention and burn't me up. Attn. all non Brent fans: Maybe you would rather have Vince. Cherish this shit.
First of all, the music out of 1989 is good. Some of the best. This show is very solid to say the least. Jerry's voice is not shot; It's just aged like a really fine whiskey. Could you imagine him singing a "Hey Little One" in 1989, 1990,....etc.? Would have been awesome. I'd give anything to hear him sing a "Days Between" or a "Terrapin Station" again. (Have you seen Ratdog or Phil and Friends do it? It just don't live up. How about a JGB doing a "Simple Twist Of Fate" or a "Lucky Ole' Sun" in the '90's. It'll bring tears to your eyes.)
Know what I think? I have to agree with bigboypeete about Keith playing more of a tinkle and besides did you ever hear his ole' lady? She sounded like a dying buffallo.(Check out Red Rocks '78, the show with the "Wharf Rat" on it.) I seen Brent 10 days before he died in Buffallo with CSN and had the opportunity to go to Deer Creek and Tinley Park and wish I had. The left front tire came off of the microbus I was hitching in right before we hit Erie at around 75 mph. on I90 and I was so unnerved I headed back to Pgh. I didn't know which way the Dead was headed from there but they never did reach the heights of those last 2 years of Brent Mydland coming into his own. Don't like the Dead in '89 better check out Alpine Valley 7/19/89, Hampton Va. 10/9/89, and LA 2/11/89. Shows that will blow your ass away.
I also think you were misfortunate like poor old Grateful A/C and maybe you had 2 of those brownies too, but when you were asleep someone tinkled in your ear. Maybe it was Brent doing "Walking Blues"; oops, that was an "organ" too.
As far as jonesin goes, I don't know what to say dude. How about getting 12/28 the old fashioned way. Trade it, if you can find anyone to trade with your ungrateful attitude. I've heard over 1000 shows and have seen 54 of them. Some of the shows I've heard isn,t even on this site. I think you need help. Get over it. I give this show 4 stars for sound quality even though it's a five star show. I,m grateful for anything I get to hear of Jerry. Y'all have a good listen now, ya hear? By the way Happy New Year.

Man not every show is gonna rock and ive heard a lot of shows from the 70's and 60's that were pretty bad and I could name 10 or 11 shows from the late 80's and early 90's that are just great and wold smoke any other shows from the early 70's and 60's.But thats justy my opinion and some peaple dont like those years in the early 70's its more or less were you went to more shows or were the shows had your biggest influence on them.But this show is a def 4 stars.

any 80's reveiw gratefulshrink writes he says "jerry is shot and the piano tinkles" i prefer 70's but this is def. a great show i cant stans ignorant people, no it might not have that psychedelic sound you would find back in the day but its still great music
p.s. brent's B-3 hammond sure as hell aint twinklin' in a few of these jams

Had to speak up...who is the complete IDIOT that has inserted a 'one-star' review in each show of this New Year run - EACH SHOW / ONE STAR - complaining about the absence of the 28th? What kind of moronic logic is that? The lack of the 28th for download in no way affects the quality of the performance of any of the other shows, as if anyone else actually needed to be informed of this... This is an excellent show in its own right, I think it is even better than the New Year's Eve show in some ways, and the sound quality is excellent too. Bertha>Good Lovin' to open the first set (shades of '78), a fantastic West L.A., second set Jack Straw opener, great China>Rider, nice Terrapin and SOTM with a smooth Baby Blue encore. Just because Dark Star (on the 31st) is played does not guarantee a superior show (especially in the 80s/90s). I like this show a lot and if anyone wants a SBD of it, e-mail me at craigeyler@yahoo.com
And keep your f***in' reviews focused! How are we supposed to learn anything about a particular show if you're complaining about another show that isn't even available????

My first west coast Dead show, flew out from Fla. and had seen 40 or so east coast shows. Recived tix for this night and new years eve show from a freind I met at a few Miami shows earlier in the year. Set him up with a crash pad for a few nights, couple of dinners and even saw a movie. Drove him up coast couple of hundred miles and exchange imfo thinkin not much of it. Calls me up in begining of December with good news of tix. Needless to say was WAY stoked on the trip. Wandering around the lot and found this old school bus and they were selling brownies out of old metal Grateful Dead lunch boxes. I love brownies, not just jucied up brownies but brownies in general. Bought 2 ate 1 and saved other for later. Found my seat and was checkin out this vollyball game on the floor (new to east coast fan) and decided to eat second brownie with a cold soda pop. Well the lights went down opened with Bertha and the show was on! These brownies were not what I was used to and I started to get very light headed. I don't remember much else till someone woke me up from being passed out under my seat. Sad and embaressed I picked my ass up and left, thinking to myself I screwed up my first west coast show. I recouped and made it to the new years show with no problems. I have seen people passed out at a Dead show before and never thought it was possible. Mabey they all ate some brownies.

Prefer this to new year's. This is some good stuff

I remember this show as being one of the best I ever attended (GD: 176, JGB: 49). Although this show does not feature the rarer songs that came to define the late 89-91 years, the playing is so inspired that it is a great show, truly high energy. For instance, during Jack Straw, Jerry's main solo comes in such waves and out of the solo Jerry is absolutely screaming the vocals in unison with Bob. Later, memories of shows like this made it harder and harder to feel the love for shows in 1994-1995, some of which were so uninspired that people stopped going as much--I believe it was one of the 1995 Mardi Gras shows that didn't even sell out, due to rain and Jerry's worsening condition; but I digress...get this show, truly sick jams throughout.

We need 12-28-89 uploaded to complete this New Years's run. A fine show, someone please upload a copy, we need to relive the memories, thanks!

This show is flat out phonomenal. The entire band sounds great. I just wish it would allow me to copy the tracks from Media Player to CD, for some reason it cannot copy, but listening to the show is wonderful.

Let's remember that in a 30 year span, a band evolves, and each era should be reckognized as its own. If you (Mr. Downer of a few reviews ago) are one of those elitist morons who is still mad at Dylan for going electric, than perhaps you should've stopped listening to the Dead after Pigpen was phased out. Look, no one should be denying that Jerry's peaks got more and more deceptive through the '80s and '90s, but a true Deadhead - one who can think AND LISTEN critically - should reckognize that a great show in 1989 sounds different than a great show in the '70s. After all, they were a different band, and if you can't change your aural perceptions to fit that understanding, than what use could your opinions serve? Sounds like you already knew you wouldn't like this show; preconceived notions waste everyone's time. For the rest of us - the lowly appreciators of post-'70s Dead - 1989 brought about yet another Golden Age of live Dead, and this show is one of the many of this era to take us as far as we have always known the Dead can lead us. That is my opinion as a devoted yet critical listener of my beloved Grateful Dead. The performance and sound quality of this show make it an asset to any audio collection.

can't say i went to hundreds of shows, but i probably went to 20 or so, and this one was an order of magnitude different - from the very first chord of bertha through the drums/space and even with aerto barking out those grating screams which normally would have had my skin crawling, from that very first chord i experienced a joy and dropping away of anxiety and self consciousness so complete that i have to say it was an ecstatic experience - judging from the sensitivity of the audience to the most subtle of displays of the heart of the music, and the clearly audible reaction on the part of the band to that appreciation, i was not the only one (or maybe i was just in tune for the first and only time with something that happened at every show.) anyway, with each consective note and each new song, the joy i experience just lifted me higher and higher. got the second set sometime ago and for years the back of my neck would tingle when i listened to it. finally, i am going to get the first set. don't expect tingling this late in the game, but in my [admittedly very personal] book, this show is in a different league from any other i ever saw, and it goes onto the very short list of my most treasured life experiences.

Dunno who that gratefulshrink guy is fooling. It's so inane and mypoic of anyone to say the band stopped making amazing music after 75-78. '89-90 was some of the best GD ever and this show proves it. The CC->Rider, TOO, Jack Straw are all first rate mammoth Grateful Dead music. It annoys me so much that old stubborn burnouts never could recognize the genius of the modern day GD. A HUGE sound, lots going on, what Jerry and Bob were doing with their effects is starting..those guys really knew their electronics!! This whole run is pretty stellar, very cerebral.

This China Cat is very interesting. Jerry actually starts playing the same riff that he played in the early 68-70 versions. Listen for it after the "double E waterfall" lyrics. Weir works perfectly with him on this. Ive never heard him do that before in any other versions from the 80's or 90's.

Tremendous version of TOO in this show. Long and spacey, lots of jamming. Great China Cat also.

the piano tinkles?? u havent listened to much 80's then have u cuss most of the time brent played organ doesnt sound much like a tinkle at all..dumbass..dude did u even listen to this shit, listen to the bertha brents playin a fuckin organ i dunno where u get tinkle from, keith played more a tinkle sound then that

Sorry people, but this music is just not that good. Certainly not consistent enough to be above 2 stars. Jerry's voice is shot, the piano tinkles, just not any kind of good psychedelic jamming going on. Stick with pre-1978 (pre-1975 even better yet). I'm not a heretic, and I love the Dead (and certainly have spent enough time listening). It's just sad to me how much the music suffered over the long years.

I might have to say yes. I know that's sacriligious to all those early 70's heads but so what, this is the Golden Age of the Dead. If I was at this show I would've been a little worried that they expended to much energy on this show the night before New Years. But, luckily, it was still just a warmup. Don't overlook this show because it was eclipsed by the next night. These versions are some of the best played during the late 80's. Keep an ear out for the WHOLE second set and the 1st is no slouch either. Due to the quality of the recording I have to give it 4 instead of 5 stars.

This performance will live with me in my dead lore because it was my first west coast show and the boys always had a way with playing nice shows on the west coast, close to home. Being from CT, I had my share of Pitt, Hartford, MSG etc...this evening in oakland is a very fine show, all around from the electricity the boys played with to the set list.
Even the most fastidious sound quality guru will enjoy the raw dead experience this tape is able to muster.
Jack straw>chinacat to open set two is worth it alone but the rest of the show is just as hot as the list.
As I always say in reviews, it can'te a five unless I was there, well, had this been a sbd this would be a five, but its only a four. Great show!